Well, of course, I might have known.  Everything had gone so smoothly up to now, that any student of the laws of chance could have foretold that fortune was only delaying the inevitable slap in the face.  A plan that seemed wild and risky had proved in the result as effectual as the wisest scheme.  By a natural principle of compensation, the simplest obstacle was to bring us to grief.  “There’s many a slip,” says the proverb.  Very likely!  One was enough for our business.  For just as we neared the edge of the wood, just as our eyes were gladdened by the full sight of the sea across the intervening patch of bare land, the signorina gave a cry of pain and, in spite of my arm, fell heavily to the ground.  In a moment I was on my knees by her side.  An old root growing out of the ground!  That was all!  And there lay my dear girl white and still.

“What is it, sweet?” I whispered.

“My ankle!” she murmured; “O Jack, it hurts so!” and with that she fainted.

Half an hour—­thirty mortal (but seemingly immortal) minutes I knelt by her side ministering to her.  I bound up the poor foot, gave her brandy from my flask.  I fanned her face with my handkerchief.  In a few minutes she came to, but only, poor child, to sob with her bitter pain.  Move she could not, and would not.  Again and again she entreated me to go and leave her.  At last I persuaded her to try and bear the agony of being carried in my arms the rest of the way.  I raised her as gently as I could, wrung to the heart by her gallantly stifled groan, and slowly and painfully I made my way, thus burdened, to the edge of the wood.  There were no sentries in sight, and with a new spasm of hope I crossed the open land and neared the little wicket gate that led to the jetty.  A sharp turn came just before we reached it, and, as I rounded this with the signorina lying yet in my arms, I saw a horse and a man standing by the gate.  The horse was flecked with foam and had been ridden furiously.  The man was calm and cool.  Of course he was!  It was the President!

My hands were full with my burden, and before I could do anything, I saw the muzzle of his revolver pointed full—­At me?  Oh, no!  At the signorina!

“If you move a step I shoot her through the heart, Martin,” he said, in the quietest voice imaginable.

The signorina looked up as she heard his voice.

“Put me down, Jack!  It’s no use,” she said; “I knew how it would be.”

I did not put her down, but I stood there helpless, rooted to the ground.

“What’s the matter with her?” he said.

“Fell and sprained her ankle,” I replied.

“Come, Martin,” said he, “it’s no go, and you know it.  A near thing; but you’ve just lost.”

“Are you going to stop us?” I said.

“Of course I am,” said he.

“Let me put her down, and we’ll have a fair fight.”

He shook his head.

“All very well for young men,” he said.  “At my age, if a man holds trumps he keeps them.”